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•93 Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures•88 The Graveyard Book•83 The Tale of Despereaux•78 Holes•76 The View from Saturday•73 The Giver•69 Number the Stars•65 Sarah, Plain and Tall•63 Dear Mr Henshaw•60 Jacob Have I Loved•57 Bridge to Terabithia•56 Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry•51 Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH•50 Summer of the Swans•47 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler•42 A Wrinkle in Time•41 The Bronze Bow•38 The Witch of Blackbird Pond•37 Rifles for Watie•36 Miracles on Maple Hill•35 Carry On, Mr. Bowditch•34 The Wheel on the School•31 Ginger Pye•30 Amos Fortune, Free Man•29 The Door in the Wall•28 King of the Wind•27 The Twenty-One Balloons•25 Strawberry Girl•26 Miss Hickory•25 Strawberry Girl•24 Rabbit Hill•23 Johnny Tremain•18 Thimble Summer•15 Caddie Woodlawn•9 Hitty, Her First Hundred Years•8 The Trumpeter of Krakow•2 The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

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Welcome

We're an Australian homeschooling family. We're passionate about the educator Charlotte Mason, the Ambleside Online curriculum, MEP maths, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Australia, Japanese aesthetics, French language, Asian travel, children's literature, our garden, and living a peaceful life in the country.

Please leave us a comment if you visit - and especially if you enjoy a particular post - it means a lot to us to know you've enjoyed visiting us!

Twenty-seven Victorian primary schools are currently delivering the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program to their students. Twenty-four of these schools are the recipients of part-funding from the Victorian Government through the 'Go for your life' health strategy. One of those is Donald.

Imagine - there are only 27 in the state and there is one half-an-hour away from us!

We were really excited to see the programme in action - and to examine where we could do better in our homeschool version.

The amount of space the school had for their garden obviously allows for a larger number of plant varieties than we can fit in - but then again, there are 150 kids...their kitchen is bigger...but ours is better equipped...they have a bigger library - ours has less twaddle...their garden is home to Darcy, the scarecrow, ours is not (to Jemimah's chagrin).

I think that physically our garden measures up pretty well - except for Darcy and we can do something about that, I'm sure!

It was great hearing all of the positive stories. All of the kids are willing to taste the produce. Some dishes have been absolute hits! One yound child even admitted that the vegetable-based dish he was trying was, "Better than Macca's!" High praise indeed.

The programme has cross curricular benefits too - maths to work out the recipes, English to write them up, science skills and more have been used in these classes. The kids have learned how to hold a knife and fork; how to set a table and importantly, how to share. It is sad that these skills are not being taught in the students' homes, but they are really important skills to know, and the programme has helped with things that parents have forgotten.

We were really inspired by our visit to Donald - not only with what the official version of the programme is achieving in their school, but also what our unofficial version is doing in ours.